Toddler-in-Chief

 By Bob Travica

By February 21, 2026, the paramilitarized immigration police killed three American citizens and had six inmates killed in its detention centers, as part of operations to "make the country safer". During just one year, the U.S. President has grabbed excessive powers and seriously damaged the institutions of the Democratic Republic. 

Donald Trump 2.0, unleashed in 2025, is more prepared, determined, and dangerous than his 1.0 version (2016-2020). He took over the White House (the WH) with Project 2025 under his belt, the plan for a right-wing revolution aiming at dismantling the democratic Republic, which included a database of officers to carry it out [0]. The Project had mostly escaped public attention, although it kicked in with nominations for key positions even before Trump 2.0 moved to the WH. When the ominous moment came in January 2025, Trump 2.0 took part in the oath-taking ritual, failed to stick his lips under the bizarrely broad rim of his wife’s hat (a remake of the fabled alien Zoro, huh?), and went to his office to self-indulge into signing a pile of executive orders, with joy, determination, pomp, and vanity. That’s how American history took a turn back to the age of royal governance over 250 years ago – colonial then, domestic under Trump 2.0.

Smash It All!

Oceans of digital ink have been spilled over assessing Trump 2.0. I don’t mean to parrot the criticism of his faults and his deviant personality. He’s been matched with the psychopath profile and mocked metaphorically. An American journalist labelled him Vulgarian-in-Chief when Trump showed the middle finger (twice) to a factory worker, calling him “pedophile protector”. He’s been named Liar-in-Chief, based on numerous fact-checking outlets that evaluated most of his statements as false. Anti-Trump memorabilia (coffee mugs, flags, posters, T-shirts, etc.) gave rise to the label Clown-in-Chief. And both his collaborators and analysts pointed to his toddlerish character. I’d like to draw on the idea of Toddler-In-Chief (TIC), which political scientist Drezner promoted by the end of Trump 1.0 [1]; the focus then was psychological, but I’ll write more about the Trump 2.0 behavior.

As a toddler, Trump is intellectually and emotionally immature. Yet, he is the chief toddler playing with a juggernaut at home and the nuclear arsenal globally. Here are some examples. Infants don’t make sensible economic decisions. TIC whimsically imposes import tariffs allegedly to lure foreign exporters to invest in American manufacturing for the benefit of American workers and consumers. However, modern automated production can’t boost employment, nor can higher domestic production costs deliver more affordable goods. Instead, tariffs pump up inflation and break supply chains and trade agreements at the detriment of the American economy.

Toddlers may grab everything in their reach, shake it, and throw it down. That can be dad’s whiskey, mom’s jewelry, a precious souvenir, anything. TIC follows suit: he throws down laws, agencies, companies, people, groups, treaties, alliances, countries, anyone, and anything. He ruptures, destroys, annihilates ceaselessly, as it befits a nasty chief toddler.

TIC whines endlessly over anything that irritates him: the previous administration, “fake media,” stubborn economic statistics, banking authorities rejecting his quirks, missing the Nobel Peace prize, a lack of recognition and love... He is all drama and revenge like a spoiled, rude kiddo. He’s happy only during the signing of countless executive orders with letters growing in size, or when he’s babbling before cameras. Oh, yes, and when he tinkers with his currently favorite toy – a new ballroom attachment to the WH under construction. Just recently, TIC interrupted his cabinet’s meeting to walk to the window overlooking the construction site, while the present officials smirked. After all, they must comply with the rules of the kinder garden-style WH.

TIC is burning down the fire station, but this is no longer funny. America is sinking into an autocratic, chaotic abyss: many state agencies are destroyed, Congress is defunct, the Supreme Court is aloof or appeasing, the DOJ and FBI are weaponized against opponents and dissidents, while ICE and border police (CBP) terrorize and gun down city residents as if they are given a license to kill. In January 2026, they killed two American-born citizens, peaceful protesters against policing raids in Minneapolis. This adds to six deaths in ICE-run detention centers, and one public murder of an American citizen in Texas, concealed for a year till the last update of this text (February 21, 2026). Thus, the paramilitarized immigration police, which doubled in size in 2025, bears responsibility for death of nine people, and yet no visible investigation is going on so far. If repression and despotism increasingly antagonize masses, as we see it on American streets, conditions for large social unrest are maturing along with the likelihood of the regime’s even larger repression. The “beacon of democracy” resembles more and more a fascist banana republic.

Drezner’s prediction came true: traits of a toddler make Trump ill-suited to the presidency and will show lasting, harmful impacts on American democracy and foreign policy.

 Time To Get Rich

TIC’s character has been recognized around the globe, and respect for him as a statesman exists only in apothecary doses. Yet, parties that depend on America in certain respects shower him with sweet talk and gifts. However, don’t mix gifts with the gifts of a significant monetary value, that is, a bribe! And this brings me to the TIC profile’s core – an insatiable greed.

TIC is tirelessly looking for opportunities to enrich himself and his family; securing proceeds for tycoons that chipped in bribes is sometimes also on his agenda. Indeed, most of his domestic policies can be understood as money-grabbing scams. Specifically, the “follow the money” lens reveals the background of his tariff frenzy. A country attacked by high tariffs negotiates with TIC behind closed doors, and offers him some benefits in return for lowering the tariffs; Vietnam gave TIC concessions for putting up golf courses and hotels to get the artificially set 46% tariffs down to 20%. Note that deal-making can happen on the back-end as well: American companies affected by specific tariffs (as investors into the overseas business or importers of raw materials and semi-goods) may plead with TIC for lowering tariffs in exchange for financial favors (they may buy his cryptos, invest in real estate projects, give gifts to his family, etc.).

TIC’s avarice also provides the key to understanding the core of his acting internationally. Examples include Ukraine (posturing around rare minerals in exchange for military help and “peace making”), Middle East (TIC’s peace plan envisions Gaza as a seaside resort with his stake in it), Venezuela (brazenly stealing that country’s oil by using American military), Greenland (prospects of operating and owning mines of rare minerals with the prospective earnings), and Canada (pushing military spending to benefit TIC’s friends in the American military industry, pressures on various companies and industries with prospects of extracting racketeering fees for loosening up chokeholds).

Overall, most of TIC’s policy-making is about creating opportunities for him and his family to squeeze out illegal income. This amounts to unabashed corruption, possibly treasonous. And TIC has spewed it out with his typical uncouth bluntness: “It’s the time to get rich;” actually, “richer” since this applies just to the already rich minority. This personal enrichment aspect has attracted less attention than TIC’s shockingly aberrant personality, and only recently is being probed [2]. Yet, it reveals the background of his seemingly illogical moves. The wealth accumulation isn’t just a byproduct of his power grab, but the primary motive behind it. That’s how things work in banana republics.

T. Rex and Minions

In the second half of the 19^th century, America was occupying the pedestal of global superpower, one of two at first, then the only one since 1992. Its image created through self-promotion and onlookers’ presumptions was a peculiar mix of admiration and fear, the beauty and the beast. The young country earned admiration for its achievements in science, technology, economy, higher education, sports, and particularly popular culture (film, music, strip, practical fashion, and imaginings of freedom). This was the irresistibly beautiful face of America, an embodiment of soft power. In contrast, being a heavyweight fighter in global affairs, America instilled fear as well. Economic and political might, plus the military that never stops growing and fighting. Huge hard power. That face of beast had its own fans among those seeking special shelter or merely worshipping might. But it was despised too, although hate was softened by beauty and a hope that self-control would develop with maturation.

Trump ruptured the magic of delusion and hope, and declared: America is the beast, inside and outside! A brutal regime that elevates loyalists and tramples disobeyers within the country and abroad. To paraphrase a Californian politician: it’s a T. rex that you either mate with, or it devours you. TIC flaxes muscles relentlessly, scouring the way for his urges, psychosis, and insatiable greed. Mind spins fitting fictional dystopias serve brainwashing: dismantling of democratic institutions “rationalizes” the government, price increase “reduces” inflation, terrorizing citizens “secures” the borders, murder in cold blood by police is “self-defense,” attacking weak countries “increases” America’s security…

Worshippers of might and hordes of self-interested opportunists make the willing builders of TIC’s evil empire. Notice how boot lickers rush to surrender every bit of conscience, to see and think what they are ordered, to justify the unjustifiable. Enter foreign minions who crawl and appease TIC, or shower him with valuable gifts, such as that disgusting surrender of the Nobel Peace prize by the laureate, a shameless beggar for power, whose country TIC terrorizes. These crawling minions bolster TIC’s power because social power emerges in a relationship necessitating the receiving end that takes in the influence of a power holder.

TIC was let in the office by 77 million voters. Perhaps some of them regret the choice they had made now that they see a malignant regime metastasizing before their eyes. They didn’t know enough, they were running away from the opponent’s abhorrent policies, they trusted campaign promises – all this is possible. Yet, such voters neglected that their candidate was a convicted felon, twice impeached in the House, and the instigator of the failed coup to overturn the 2020 election results. Not to mention unethical and illegal private affairs, several bankruptcies, tax evasion, and indecent public behavior inappropriate for a statesman. True, misled voters may have a chance to correct the mistake, provided that free elections will be held in the future.

Although TIC may have lost part of his voting body, a sizeable part of it is likely to survive among his blind followers who believe that America-the-beast is the right one. They will undermine the possibility of rooting him out of office. And even if that happens, he’ll leave chaos behind. Enter the structural weaknesses of American democracy predating this ongoing right-wing revolution: the rule of plutocrats who manipulate the corrupted two-party Congress, a significant income disparity, and a de facto Constitutional order that overweighs the executive branch at the expense of legislative and judicial branches (I wrote about this in relation to Trump 1.0 [3]). When one of the two major parties controls both chambers of Congress and the WH, and the President is autocratic, the system of checks and balances is thrown out of the window. Put another way, the fact that democratic institutions collapsed just within one year indicates that the 250-year-old Republic was weak. A more robust construction would keep in check the President’s awkward personality and avert this catastrophic collapse.

On its anniversary, America is all shook up, and so is the world that either likes or despises it.

@

[0] Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. Heritage Foundation, 2023.   https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

[1] Drezner, D., Toddler-In-Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency. The  University of Chicago, 2020.

[2] Kirkpatrick, D., How Much Money Is Trump Profiting from the Presidency? The New Yorker, 2025.      https://youtu.be/cpOE3aAt8XU

[3] Travica, B. Trumping the Constitution.  https://cogito-bob.blogspot.com/2020/09/

Takeaways from Trumpism

By Bob Travica

In all likelihood, the U.S. President Donald Trump will be impeached. Between the reality shows “Apprentice” (a.k.a. “You are fired”) and “Russian Connection”, I wrote about (http://cogito-bob.blogspot.com/2017/ ), the latter is going to prevail. The special counsel Muller has been drilling down diligently for months, turning the President’s allies into enemies and inching toward indicting Trump for obstruction of justice.

Part of news media have contributed immensely to the reality “Russian Connection” and spearheaded the impeachment cry. Enter the loss of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Still angry over the loss of presidential elections in 2016, there is no doubt that Democrats will make Trump’s impeachment a top priority once they take over the House.

In result, the lay-off addict that’s occupying the Oval Office has got cornered. In the ironic turn of events, he will be fired.

Resume of Trumpism

There can be little doubt that Trump is not cut to be President as we know it. A hard-handed business boss, he’s got no stomach for the usual political wheeling and dealing and a schmoozing double-talk. He can’t keep his cool and his tongue under control. Trump has assumed the country (and its international extensions) to be his private enterprise that he could run at will. He has ruled by presidential decrees and uttered “you’re fired” to a level insane even for a privately owned business. And yes, he’s made lots of noise, ahem trumpery, via tweeting and in other ways.

Overall, the Trumpian hard-handed governance put at a test the institutions of check-and-balance in the American political system. True, he didn’t bring his horse into the Congress yet, as an emperor in the ancient Rome did. But this is perhaps so just because Trump didn’t really frequent the place.

Joking aside, the end result of two years of Trumpism seem clear. In spite of all the Caesarism and combativeness, Trump’s remake of Reagan’s “Let’s make America great (again)” has yielded just some poultry results. Repatriation of American business and profits remains as elusive as it’s been throughout the globalization era. Consequently, the trend of impoverishing the American lower classes hasn’t been reversed.

The promised reforming of health care (Obama-care) failed. Actually, this is good news for the underprivileged masses who for the first time in history experienced benefits that are normal in developed countries. Also on the domestic political scene, Trumpism stirred up the immigration policies only to create chaos, triggering unpleasant imagery of great walls and iron curtains.

Overall, Trumpism failed to shake up the Washington establishment. Acting on the premise that the federal political institutions were broke and needed fixing, Trump just managed to scratch the system. 

Trump didn’t truly undermine the entrenched echelons of power resting on the extensive intelligence sector, the special interest-stringed news media, and umbilical links between the Congress and corporations. Trump actually irritated and antagonized the key players, and got them united against himself.  The consolidation of shadowy power centers may have long-term political consequences.

No notable results in international politics could be seen either, except that two Koreas are now allowed to talk to each other. The promises of easing tensions with Russia and in the Middle East have not materialized. Other foreign policy acts have been about undoing deals that the previous governments made (NAFTA, Iran nuclear deal).

American establishment has so far reacted to Trump’s administration not as much to what it’s been done but rather to how it’s done. A large part of the establishment rejected Trump’s thriving on absolutism and chaos. And that’s good. Preventing a regression of the American republic toward a monarchy is good not only for the U.S. but for the world as well.

Trump’s resume is apparently gloomy. Are there any other takeaways, any credits he’s earned? I think there are some lying on the flip page of Trump’s liabilities.

To Your Face

Trump is the first President to speak openly his mind. In the past, instances of honesty were rare, including Eisenhower's talk about the military-industrial complex impacting American politics, and W. Bush’s acknowledgment of advantages of autocracy. However, Trump made this practice regular via tweeting and public speech. Trump spits out with no hesitation what other politicians just bear in mind or say just behind the closed door. This could be happening out of mere arrogance. Regardless, his raw thoughts are there for the public to judge. Here are some examples.

Trump says that the U.S. will keep supporting Saudi Arabia regardless of the international standing of the country’s ruler because they buy American weapons. Contrast that with the typical U.S. policy of playing publicly a guardian of human rights while actually supporting even the most oppressive regimes if they act in accord with American interest. This could be the dictator, oil exporter, big buyer, an enemy of America’s enemy, a careless seller of national assets, owner of a geopolitically relevant territory, etc. American governments are not choosy as long as the partner plays their game.

Trump also stopped playing the double game of a peacemaker in the Middle East with regard to relations between Israelis and Palestinians. He openly moved to the Israeli side, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem (which is supposed to be a shared city), and thus he broke the cycle of hypocrisy entrapping the past U.S. presidents.

Moreover, Trump advised blatantly the NATO allies to contribute more money to the military pact. NATO has been touted as an alliance that serves the interest of all members, each of whom desires it equally with no second thought. However, the U.S. has been heavily footing the NATO bill in money and military resources. Perhaps so because NATO has served primarily a strategy of American global hegemony. Trump’s reasoning is dire straight: put the money where your mouth is! If it fails to chase out more contributions, his approach may show that NATO is not so desperately desired by the allies.

In a word, the Trumpian to-your-face frankness unveiled the ugly face of realpolitik as the driver of American global role. Not a big news for an educated critical thinker. Still, let’s keep in mind that such a person is a rare entity in the country with politically undereducated citizens who are regularly brain-washed.

The mission of past Presidents was to make the folks believe that America has always stuck to the high moral ground, having humanity in mind as the ultimate goal, even when that meant destroying millions of people and entire countries overseas. Trump’s awkward honesty breaks the self-aggrandizing illusion.

Lying Conundrum

Another good consequence of the Trumpism is publicizing that high politics involves lying. This is where a war between the so-called liberal media, on one side, and conservative media and Trump, on the other, have played a key role. A fact-checking order was issued to liberal media as early as in the election run by the opposing presidential candidate. CNN, Washington Post, and The New York Times took on the job quite seriously. They tracked zig-zag trajectories of Trump’s statements and voiced lots of “Aha!”. In contrast, conservative media (Fox News and a number of the radio- and Internet-based outlets) endeavored to counter each point.

Checking and balancing powers is a basic mechanism of democracy. So, it is desirable to question politicians’ statements. However, the media have acted in a confusing way by taking extreme positions. Both on the left and the right spectrum of media, the balancing act of covering different views has given way to partisanship. The opposing media keep accusing each other of “fake news”, while each side is claiming the exclusive right on absolute truth. What's really happening behind this truth-loving quest?

While conservative media uncritically praise Trump, liberal media strive to prove that Trump’s lying is extraordinary as if there exists a typical American politician speaking facts (truth) only. News consumers are supposed to believe that a truth-telling politician is embodied in the interviewees that spray verbal bullets on Trump’s statements and moves. 

Let’s play the media’s game. Fact: Politics is always about lying because a politician deals with antagonistic groups. Let’s assume there are two groups with opposed interests. If a politician promises fulfillment of the group interest to both sides, he must be lying to one of them. But a politician must do exactly that or risk losing the support of the frustrated group.

Politicians lie all the time and take that as part and parcel of the job. Facts and the truth are not the essential part of representing political interest, deal-making, and compromising to shape the legislation. Rather, facts are mixed with semi-facts, lies, ideological and self-interest biases, unwarranted promises, hidden connotations, obscured agendas, and so on. Quite a dramatic contrast to a virginal purity of facts-based politics that the media on both sides serve to the public. However, the anti-Trump media play on American culture.

Tango of Hypocrisy

American Presidents live under a glass bell; the nation and the world watch them keenly. A president is supposed to embody values of the national culture. Take marital fidelity, for example, and recall the former President Bill Clinton who was impeached for an act that in some other countries would be considered merely a juicy story.

Not lying is also an American cultural value. In everyday life, most Americans behave accordingly. However, it is tacitly accepted that certain social areas are not bullet-proof (politics, law, business, management). While public relations (PR, propagandistic) spins are regular in politics, liberal media amplify them since the top officer inside the glass bell should not lie, ahem, openly. Thus, these media perpetuate a drama in which the protagonist they construct is violating the culture.

Former presidents managed to mask their spins and to tango in lock-step with media. Call this a tango of hypocrisy, if you wish. But that’s how culture works, a china store that very much defines any society. There then comes elephant Trump and tweet-sprays the store from the trenches of his office, bedroom, toilet… 

The critics deem Trump's behavior as uncultivated and arrogant while grinning at the donation of lots of anti-Trump ammunition that Trump gives away. However, the opponents judge this as a welcome refreshment within the ossified Washington establishment.

Spinner’s Truth

Journalism is on a slippery slope of truthfulness by the nature of its work. Journalists struggle to construct a journalistic truth, based on evidence they can capture in a speedy and messy journalistic workflow. Coming up with undisputable social facts is hard to do even in more contemplative environments of a historian or social scientist (both admit incompleteness of findings though). However, news media are at the bottom of the truth scale, just a notch above politicians.

Journalists act upon hastily collected evidence from preset, filtered and partially automated sources of informing. Journalists readily cite hunches, rumors and subjective impressions as if these are fully baked facts. Causal connections between co-occurring events are made on the fly, subjective conclusions declared the truth. And yes, career-minded journalists compete for that alluring best story.

Enter institutional factors. Media owners aim at increasing their advertising income and social capital (connections in the economic and political worlds). Agendas drive the source selection and analysis even in the basic coverage of an event’s W’s (who, what, where, when, and why). And any medium is subject to a certain ideology as it’s crystal clear in the current split among American media. This institutional context presses media professionals to fit the given way or hit the highway.

The end result is that the business of informing involves spin doctoring. The worst case of it is when an ambitious journalist purposely embraces a medium’s agenda for story-making (for example, the civil war in Bosnia and the war in Syria). Still, the journalistic establishment tends to accolade such fictionalized journalism with prestigious awards. Paradoxical? Not really. The business of media is reality construction rather than description.

The spinner’s preaching of fact/truth is hardly more credible than the political PR. But it’s certainly more deceiving. Taking a critical look at media is plausibly another useful takeaway from the period of Trumpism.

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Just two American presidents were impeached by the House (Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton) and both were acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon was forced to resign due to a looming impeachment ensuing the Watergate scandal. It remains to be seen which way Donald Trump will go. As investigations on him escalate, the Russian Connection reality may become unnecessary for removing him from the office. Turning the American republic into an autocracy has failed. Still, the country's political system needs fixing. But that’s a topic for another blog.